Small Boy: The Elephant Kombi Story

Stella A-Tortoise

Thank you for your continued support dear fellow travellers. Welcome to another week of Meditations on Migration, a newsletter by me Allen Kuziwakwashe Matsika about returning home to Zimbabwe to grow my writing and become a goat farmer after over 10 years away in the diaspora. Here is how it’s been going: 

Stella Arto-toise

I was at a store in the wilds of Zimbabwe and some young guns were purchasing something while I was trying to wiggle into a deal using US dollars and the Local Zig currency in one transaction. The two can be like oil and water at other stores, and the Zig rates can be a matter of location. One of the young guns was talking about enjoying a bottle of Stella Art-oise, pronounced like ‘tortoise.’ I stood there wondering how to respond to this pronunciation. Now it didn't help that they were mentioning the beer back and forth such that I had enough time to truly bite my tongue. A part of me wanted to make right this wrong, and another part wanted to laugh. We were back again to “Rising up to Eagle” The struggle is real! I wasn’t born knowing how to pronounce Stella Artois - for those who may want to know, it’s a Belgian beer pronounced Steh-llah Art-wah - and I had to google the name for this piece and remove the “E” I was putting at the end. See I too was messing it up. But it was a funny moment for a part of me and I wanted to share it with you today.

You see, back when I was in high school I was more humble, less entitled, and less American. (A joke) I respected people and their mistakes, and probably I respected my own mishaps as well. I remember rising up to eagle and fighting for the voiceless. I even knighted myself at the time, humbly recognizing my place in the history of mankind as the voice of the voiceless. I spoke up for the rest of the school who weren’t prefects and teachers’ pets and asked for better from our leaders. I called myself Sir Allen and the name stuck. It stuck so much that some teachers began to call me “sir” and back then I never laughed at broken English. No part of me ever found it an event of enduring mirth for people to stumble in their speech. I was reverend but outspoken. And the persecution came unexpectedly. I was a law-abiding student but my speeches encouraged many a teacher to find fault with my behavior. They found no cracks. But eventually, they held something from me unless I relented at being myself. It was the first punch in the face that added to my simmering dislike for authority but my own. 

I splintered though when this happened and a part of me decided I was no longer a sir and simply a boy. Another part of me wanted to burn the world down. And so a part laughs and another wants to help but both are tainted with the fire. I made another speech after this, a voice for the voiceless and signed off, Allen Matsika, the boy. What do you know, the new nickname stuck, “The Boy.” Some called me “Sir”, and others “The Boy” and I remember this story as I consider my Stella Artois story and today’s featured image of a kombi with the picture of an elephant and the words, small boy and another Samanyanga. This is an interesting splintering if you ask me because those two might as well be opposites. But this story is better told by the Kombi Storyteller. Here is how opposite meanings ended up on this kombi, at least as I imagine it.

Small Boy - A Kombi Story

Now it’s not very uncommon that kombi drivers and owners put their totem on their commuter omnibuses. In fact, as more and more Zimbabweans start businesses you find many are shortened totem names and totem nicknames (zvidawo). Now the totem of the driver of this kombi is the Elephant, which was the totem of the great and late Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi of the Tuku Music fame. A music genius who created his very own world-recognised genre. And it was the kombi driver’s favorite music. The kombi driver was of short stature, the only one who found it very comfortable to drive the low roof kombi. The kombi driver usually brought in record profits for the kombi owner. Furthermore was the type to share his extra earnings with his boss, such that whenever he fell short it was never even looked at. It made his work flexible, less pressured, and most enjoyable as he drove around listening to his Tuku music.

Now he was of the Elephant Totem as I mentioned before, whose totem nicknames include Samanyana or Mhukahuru. Mhukahuru meaning huge animal or big kahuna. Now, the other drivers of the kombi owner found themselves outshined by a man of small stature. The boss rewarded him with original CDs of Tuku’s music and the boss too began to listen to Tuku Music more. This made the other drivers a tad bit jealous as they said the boss treated the driver like his last born like he was a small boy. Now before the nickname stuck fast, the kombi driver was in luck. His hwindi (wind/conductor) was put out of commission by crippling mental health challenges from using drugs, particularly crystal meth also known as guka/mutoriro. Now this wasn’t a new thing, for people to get so stoned over months of use that they lose their minds more or less. So though it was a tragedy it wasn’t the focus of the following days for the drivers or kombi owner. Everyone marveled at how Samanyanga had managed to stay profitable with such a hwindi who had been slowly unravelling. But Samanyanga said he had kept the boy in line with his big stature of heart due to his totem.

With this comment, the drivers had even more reason to call him small boy and cut his ego down. Well, the kombi driver found a short young man to be his hwindi, so the nickname small boy could not land on him well when it was more appropriate for his hwindi. In the end, when the kombi boss decided to put a decal on the kombi - he didn’t even have to count the driver’s months for qualification though it was way after his driver’s time - they went to the 3 words workshop. And there they put Samanyanga, and an artistic silhouette of the elephant. Then the words Small Boy on the sides, which the driver specifically asked for so that he could take charge of his undesired nickname. He even calls his hwindi small boy every now and then, especially in the presence of the other drivers. It doesn’t help that the hwindi’s totem is the Mbeva (African Field Mouse) also known as Musoni/Zungunde, or better known as Small Boy.

And so thats how these two opposites ended up on this Kombi’s back, at least as I imagine it. Big and Small can exist together apparently and splinters can come into a kind of harmony. I hope wherever you are you can crack a Stella Arto-toise or brew yourself a cup of another well-accepted drug, caffeine. Thank you again for your continued support and the subscriptions. I am grateful.